Journalists freed from Tripoli hotel

Three dozen journalists and a former congressman from Washington, D.C., who were held against their will in the luxury Rixos hotel in Tripoli for nearly a week have been freed on Wednesday by the International Red Cross after Qadhafi regime loyalists abandoned their posts.

But even while these journalists celebrated their release from the hotel, the BBC reported that four Italian journalists had been kidnapped by forces still loyal to Qadhafi.

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The Italian journalists were traveling to the western coastal city of Zawiya when they had been stopped; their driver was killed on the scene. The journalists worked for Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera, La Stampa and Avvenire, a spokesman for the Italian foreign ministry told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the journalists that had been freed from the Rixos hotel earlier today told their respective news networks about their ordeal.

Matthew Chance, a CNN correspondent who was trapped along with the rest of his crew since Sunday evening, said on air that they had been been let go after a “frightening” several days.

“We’ve been living in fear for the last five days, being held against our will by these crazy gunmen,” said Chance, who said that the gunmen suspected them of being NATO spies and were very hostile.

Chance, reporting on air from right outside the Rixos hotel, said that some of the freed journalists were crying.

“We had two gunmen [as guards] who still believed that the city could be taken back by Col. Qadhafi’s forces,” said Matthew Price, a correspondent for the BBC who was among those held against their will. “As the power cuts lengthened, we started stockpiling the water supplies and the food supplies that were left there.”

“It was firmly [the guards’] belief that if we went outside of the hotel, the rebels would capture us, kill us and rape the women,” said Price.

The journalists were found clustered together on the second floor of the hotel, and exited the hotel in their flak jackets and helmets, reports the BBC. They have since been taken away from the scene in cars; no one was injured.

The journalists have been trapped along with former U.S. delegate to Congress for the District of Columbia, Walter Fauntroy and an Indian member of Parliament.

There has been speculation that the Qadhafi loyalists are using the journalists as human shields to prevent them from being bombed by NATO or attack by the rebels who control Tripoli.

Concern had grown over the last few days, as the food and energy problems in the hotel grew more desperate.

A journalist for China Central Television, the country’s largest broadcaster filed a video in which she showed her dwindling food stocks, which consisted of a few apples, two bananas, some chips and a couple of bottles of water. The video also showed that she had put her mattress up across the windows ito provide protection from snipers and possible shrapnel.

The video also showed the difficult living conditions of the hotel — once meant as a luxury stop for foreign officials and other dignitaries passing through Tripoli. The electricity has been cut out inmany parts of the hotel, and there are fears that this will threaten the building’s water supplies.

According to the BBC, the situation inside was also highly hostile — gunmen were “roaming around the corridors” and snipers appear to be posted on the roof. A continued hostage situation might have led to a consideration of deploying special forces to release those trapped inside the hotel, added the UK’s Daily Telegraph.

Reporters without Borders had condemned the hostage situation, calling the reporters held there “the prisoners of a dying regime that refuses to lay down its arms.”

Fauntroy, a 78-year-old pastor who served as a non-voting congressional delegate for the District of Columbia for 20 years who was in Libya on a peace mission, said he was concerned about his safety and that of the journalists around him.

“Right now, we are in a precarious situation with some of our friends from the media, because we fear that unless we are able to relocate, we may all be in danger,” he told the Telegraph earlier.